Archive for the ‘Justice Eady’ tag

The Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Mail was right to call for a public debate about privacy. He was not right to do it through such an astonishingly personal attack on Mr Justice Eady (who is not in a position to respond). Nor was he right when he said the judge was creating a ‘back door’ privacy law in the UK (we have had a privacy law since Article 8 of the Human Rights Act was incorporated to British law in 2000). But he was right that this issue is of significance and should be discussed publicly and openly.

Not least because it fully illustrates the inadequacy of the current system of press self-regulation. If the existing Press Complaints Commission were not so opaque, so riven with conflicts of interest, and so unaccountable, then fewer people would resort to legal action and the risk of a privacy law restraining the press would recede.